Talk:Contras

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It is well-known that this site has been the target of liberal-left vandalism, at several levels.

One method is to write up false, but superficially-plausible entries. If this sort of thing is done right, and sparingly, then we can salute the skill of the prankster, and have a laugh at ourselves. (And, of course, correct the entry.) Such was the case with the entry on cacti.

The send-up has an honorable history, and we are then given license to practice it on the Left. (The classic case of this, of course, is the delicious "Sokol Hoax", which should have destroyed the credibility of the post-modernists forever. And all the better that the authors of the hoax were themselves liberals -- hats off to them.)

However, crude attempts at this sort of thing only reveal the intellectual poverty of the perpetrators, and the entry on the Contras, obviously a fake, is one such. Of course Leftists are angry at Ronald Reagan, the destroyer of so many of their dreams.

And his great crime in the subject under discussion was in forcing the Nicaraguan government to hold free elections, with the usual results.

Maybe something needs to be put in about the Boland Amendment? That funding the Contras ledIran-Contra scandal didn't come about just because people were opposed to funding the Contras, but because the funding of the Contras was in violation of US law.--Epicurius 13:44, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Contents

Death squads

Who killed more innocent people: leftist, Marxist groups trying to "build socialism"? Or "counter-revolutionary" groups who fought back against Communist murderers? This matter should be examined at great length. We need an article on Communist mass murder or Communist genocide. (And no quibbles about genocide vs. democide.) --Ed Poor 09:14, 21 May 2007 (EDT)

Genocide is ok when the Contras do it

Why do you people lie about the facts. The Contras were a brutal, totalitarian, right wing, terrorist organization who committed gross violations of human rights. No one says the Sandinistas were perfect but you try to cover up the crimes of the Contras. I have no problem with people criticizing left wing monsters like Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao. But when people criticize right wing monsters like Pinochet, Somoza, and the Contras, it is chalked up to being "leftist propaganda". You people call yourself Christian but excuse the crimes of these monsters. What would Jesus do? --NimChimpsky 11:48, 11 June 2007 (EDT)

The article doesn't seem to be a glowing review of the Contras, and, in fact, is quite harsh in some areas. You'll find on a whole that the use of the word genocide in these situations isn't going to help your cause. What happened in Germany during World War II was genocide. What happened in Armenia during World War I was genocide. In modern usage, the term is thrown around so much in such a watered down form that it is insulting to those who were true victims of systematic extermination. In the U.S. Civil war, both the north and the south had cases of atrocities. But no one would say that the north was committing genocide on the south or the south was committing genocide on the north. War is brutal and change often comes with elements of cruelty attached, but it is not genocide. Learn together 12:26, 11 June 2007 (EDT)

NimChimpsky, see my links below in the facts/conclusions section. I spent 3 1/2 years in Nicaragua in 80s. You need to explain why if the Contras were the ones murdering civilians, the Sandinistas had to resort to internment camps for the campesinos, why all the hundreds of thousands of refugees told the same story of Sandinista abuses, and why in the internationally monitored election in 1990, in spite of every advantage of controlling army, secret police and state run media did the Contra candidate win by the biggest landslide in the history of Nicaraguan elections? Why did the Catholic Church overtly support Contras? If there was any doubt, look at behavior of Resistance Commandos since the war vs. the FSLN campaign of corruption, intimidation, murder of political opponents and recent internationally condemned theft of 2008 municipal elections. Elections to which Ortega refused international observers having been burnt by that in 1990. Please visit Nicaragua and talk to any campesino over 40 as to what took place in that war. Tiomono 21:47, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

Changes

Incorporate References section. In the second line of the second paragraph, the word 'finding' should be 'funding' Learn together 03:06, 24 July 2007 (EDT)

Communist Propaganda?

The Contras have been blasted by mainstream human rights organizations such as Amnesty International. To say that their abuses were merely communist propaganda is terribly biased. Perhaps one should have went and lived in the Nicaraguan countryside in the 80s before having such a biased view --ChristianDemocracy 16:20, 24 September 2007 (EDT)

Let me tell you what is commie prop: there was more than one Contra group. Linking them all together as "terrorists" and death squads is the fast track to the banhammer. Rob Smith 16:40, 24 September 2007 (EDT)

THE CONTRAS HAVE SYSTEMATICALLY ENGAGED IN THIS TYPE OF BEHAVIOUR, MUCH LIKE THE AUC IN COLOMBIA DO TODAY --ChavezFan 16:25, 29 October 2007 (EDT)

ChristianDemocracy. Pope John Paul II defrocked Ernesto Cardenal. Cardinal Obando y Bravo courageously supported the Contras in their fight for justice for the campesinos in spite of constant Sandinista threats and censorship. Read this article by Obando y Bravo
"The Sandinistas Gagged and Bound Us". The Contras were true Christians sacrificing for their people and their God. And yes, for Democracy. [1]Tiomono 21:57, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

Lincoln bold

The final external link has an extra pair of brackets around it.. and the term isn't bolded. -^_^- Fuzzy 11:00, 27 February 2008 (EST)

This sparse page on Contras doesn't even begin to tell the facts

I'll come back and edit it sometime. The fact is the Commandos of the Nicaraguan Resistance enjoyed overwhelming campesino
support in every region of Nicaragua except for the big cities where we never got anything going thanks to murderous State Security
gestapo. Contras had the Piricuacos (Ejercito Unpopular Sandinista) army on the run after Reagan's $100 mil aid package which included red-eyes to shoot down the Russian Hind-D helicopters. Fear of another lethal aid package had the Piris("Mad Dog" the only term I ever heard used by campesinos for the "Sandinistas") running to Jimmmy Carter, Oscar Arias and George Bush to negotiate themselves out of military defeat. Following the sellout of the Nicaraguan Resistance, Violetta Chamorro, the Contra candidate, won the 1990 election by biggest margin in history of presidential elections. 55-41% even though refugees outside Nicaragua, all pro-UNO were not allowed to vote and campesinos were only given 24 hourse to register. Else Contras would have won vote by 70-30% no doubt.

CONCLUSION: The majority had to be campesinos. Somoza only had 6k guardia at peak. By any ONUCA or UN count, there were 10 times as many ex Sandinista as ex Guardia members in Contra ranks. The Contras were campesinos. Period.

FACT: By 1987 Contras operated in absolutely every corner of Nicaragua except for the big cities.[3][4][5]

CONCLUSION: They couldn't have operated in all corners from Zelaya Sur, Rio San Juan, through Chontales, Matagalpa, Jinotega east to Atlantic Coast and north to Rio Coco and recieved undetected air drops from loud DC-6 cargo planes without OVERWHELMING campesino support.

FACT: The Sandinistas resorted to "Relocation Camps" for the campesinos. The forced relocation, often accompanied by destruction of homes, happened both in the North [6] and the South [7] and occurred over multiple years. Sometimes the "Relocation" was accompanied by wholesale slaughter,torture and aerial bombardment as happened during the razing of Miskito villages along the Rio Coco.[8]

CONCLUSION: Contras enjoyed such huge support among the campesinos, the Sandinistas had to "relocate" them by force to internment camps

FACT: The Sandinistas by early 1988 were reduced to rounding up teenagers in movie theaters and on city buses to fill their admitted 30,000/year conscription quota. This led to spontaneous uprisings of civilian mothers in Managua and Masaya [9][10]

INESCAPABLE CONCLUSION: The Sandinistas were getting their butts kicked militarily and were desperately scrounging for bullet catchers. The overwhelming majority of Nicaraguans had had enough of the Sandinistas authoritarian regime by 1988. Imagine how the anti-Resistance posters on this page would have treated prospects for military success if George Bush had done this for Iraq or Afghan wars. Facts are facts. This fact is great starting point when subject of Contras military momentum in 1987 & early 88 comes up.

FACT: In the 1990 elections, in spite of only giving campesinos 24 hours to register to vote in a country where the majority had to walk or ride mules to register and had no phones or electricity, the ANTI-SANDINISTA candidate Violetta Chamorro won by a landslide. [11]

CONCLUSION: The media bias predicting just the opposite result was in stark contrast to the LANDSLIDE decision of Nicaraguans at the polls to vote for Democracy over Communist authoritarianism. Brokaw, Jennings, Koppel all smugly predicted Sandinista victory. Jennings had to go on air and issue red-faced apology for being "terribly wrong". "Terribly wrong" sums up many of the posts on this wiki page. [12]

FACT: Witness For Peace and similar organizations to this day require indoctrination of their "witnesses" before, during and after visiting Nicaragua according to their own current web page.[13]

CONCLUSION: I can cite many more links. Leftist organizations and main stream media had an agenda. They would not visit "off limits" battlefields and "inaccessible" zones until those zones had been properly prepared by their Sandinista minders. Draw your own conclusions. Tiomono 14:17, 13 June 2009 (EDT)

"overturned on appeal"

The article claimed that all convictions relating to the Iran-Contra affair were overturned on appeal. That seems incorrect; at least one convicted person and several others who had pled guilty were pardoned by George H.W. Bush. Since it's also rather irrelevant to the Contras and explained better at the affair article, I've removed all mention of legal repercussions of the affair from this article. Yoritomo 23:22, 30 November 2009 (EST)

That would be faulty logic, Yoritomo. The Pardons merely corrected a wrong, inasmuch as the others were overturned. The correct logical conclusion is the others would have been overturned had they not already pleaded guilty, and the one party would not have been convicted had the reasoning of the appeals judge been applied. --ṬK/Admin/Talk 12:40, 1 December 2009 (EST)

I still don't see why convictions in the US, overturned or not, are significant to the Nicaraguan Contras. How are the affair's legal repercussions in the US relevant to this article?

Actually I'd suggest removing mention of Oliver North's current job as well, unless we want to insinuate that Fox News employs supporters of groups we mention under Right Terrorism - and even if we wanted to insinuate that, I'd still say this article is not the one to make that point. Yoritomo 15:27, 1 December 2009 (EST)

Thank you for calling the Contra addition to the Terrorism article, Yoritomo. They were added by an editor long-ago blocked for being a vandal/parodist/liar. I removed her entry. Oliver North is a great patriot, and his involvement with the Contras isn't at all shameful. --ṬK/Admin/Talk 15:45, 1 December 2009 (EST)